Chapters Two and Three: Sent, Sickness, and a Siren
Roses.
The faint, heady odor had instantly captured his attention upon arriving in this castle, in the war room in which he found himself. His eyes scanned the room for the source of the sent as he walked toward the group of men, and to his surprise finding a woman. A woman with dark hair wearing a gold dress and whose bright blue eyes looked at him with curiosity as opposed to fear as she strained against the arm holding her back. The odor came from her. It lingered upon her neck and wrists and floated lightly from the fabric of her dress, seeming to draw him in as if the woman was a siren. He named his price then and there.
Her name was Belle.
After she'd arrived at his castle he had expected the sent to disappear, for he knew it must come from some type of perfume and he had not allowed any personal items to be brought.
It did not fade however. It lingered wherever she'd been, winding through the hallways and floating above the pots in the kitchen, settling in the chair she always sank into whenever she tried to clean the library (she couldn't prevent herself from reading), and clinging to the fabrics that she dusted.
Rumplestiltskin had expected Belle to complain and be inapt at the harder tasks he assigned her, but to his surprise she did them efficiently and without uttering a word. She even seemed to enjoy them, in fact. As a result the same sweet sent was present in the stables she mucked that morning and the garden that had been deweeded and harvested from last week. It was soaked into the chests she'd hulled from one end of the castle to the other, drifted up from the stone floor she scrubbed and the small boat from which algae and salt deposits had been removed, and even seemed to leak out of the fish she'd expertly gutted and flayed for that night's dinner.
When he'd began to follow the sent on foot rather then use magic to pop in on her he told himself it was because he wanted to catch her trying to steal something or to see if he could catch her muttering to herself as she planned her escape. It wasn't because he liked to watch her from the doorway, he (the monster of a master that she must surly think him) remaining unnoticed for a few moments as her curls shimmered in the sunlight as she polished or dusted, the sent of those roses wafting directly toward him.
After their kiss, after he'd allowed his fears and paranoia to take hold and after he'd ordered her from his life, after he'd lied through his teeth and destroyed his possessions, after he'd caused pain in her eyes and felt as if someone was stabbing him through the heart…. after all of that he went into her room.
The room that he'd given her and was always off limits to the likes of him.
He went into her room to look for the source of her sent, for he'd never had the courage to ask her when he'd had the chance. To his surprise there was no perfume, no soap, not even some type of cream to explain the roses. It was then he realized that it must have been her natural sent all along, the magic that gave him that one heightened sense and took for granted for so long that it had been forgotten is what had allowed him to smell what a human could not.
Her room had remained locked after that, but the sent had remained, floating and lingering all over the castle as if Belle was right around the corner, about to make a teasing remark or goad him into dusting or gave him that smile of hers that left him floating on air. It rose from his clothes and the curtains as if Belle was touching him once more or had been playing with the curtains in that absentminded way of hers.
Of course Belle wasn't there. He'd sent her away to live her life without him, and Regina would become best friends with Snow White before Belle – his Belle – came near this castle again.
That didn't stop him from hoping. From watching out the window for hours and neglecting his more pointless deals, from listening for her voice calling his name and refusing to close the curtains.
When he was told what they had done to her, that his Belle had been flayed like a fish and the skin ripped from her back by clerics ordered by her father to cleanse her soul her soul! as if she were witch of old or had been marked as the devils' whore because she alone had been willing to save their worthless hides! he couldn't breathe nor think and just forcing those few words out had almost been more then he could bare.
When Regina told him she died, that she couldn't take the pain anymore and had thrown herself off the tower…
Belle.
Oh, God.
Why hadn't she called for him?
Why?
Had she thought he wouldn't come?
That even if she came to believe his lie that he wouldn't kill every last one of them for daring to touch her?
That he wouldn't make every last one of them suffer ten fold for every ounce of her pain?
He had been listening, listening and straining his ears and his magic until both felt as if they would snap if he kept it up another second but he'd continued anyway.
Why didn't he hear her?
Had she called for him at all?
Did she scream his name?
Whisper it?
Sob it?
Shriek it as she pleaded and begged for him to help her and for the pain to stop?
Curse his very existence for bringing this upon her and yet was more then willing to expect his help if he had come?
Come he would have. He would have traveled across the lands in an instant and slaughtered them all. He would have come no matter if she kissed him once again or spat in his face and demanded that he throw himself off the tower for daring to think that he was ever worthy enough for an angel like her.
Why hadn't -
Why?
Why!
After Rumplestiltskin had managed to pull himself up from the floor, tears still staining his face and her chipped cup in it's place of honor before him, it was only then that he noticed that the sent of roses had faded away. The opening of his doors by the Queen must had allowed the last of her sent to escape, the rotting fruit stench that belong to Regina now taking it's place.
There was not a hint of roses left.
Her sent was gone.
Just as Belle herself was gone.
Forever.
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"It was a brief flicker of light amidst an ocean of darkness."
Rumplestiltskin recalls his words to the false Prince, whom is now doing what he, the Dark One has requested. Hide the bottle of True Love inside the belly of a beast, more sepefcially the belly of a dragon. A dragon whom is in fact a witch betrayed and cursed by Regina, and whom by now is no doubt angrier then hell about her everlasting transformation. That is one reason why Rumplestiltskin was reluctant to attempt this himself, for he has no desire to spend the next few days in agony as his skin regrows. The second reason is that he knows Regina will want to take the dragon-witch along when the curse is enacted, and it wouldn't do for her to sense his magic lingering about.
Rumplestiltskin has no fear that what he asks will not be done, for he has every intention of keeping that ring until it is. As that is the Prince's only hope of finding his love it will be done, and Rumplestiltskin knows that after the Prince has honored his agreement with him he will instantly continue running after the woman whom had been foolish enough to wish to forget him in the first place.
The same fool and false one whose True Love and the child that will result from their union have become essential to his plans.
All the plans to find his son are coming into place.
As of this moment he can't bring himself to care, although he knows that he soon will.
All he can think of is Belle. Her laughter and frowns, the way she'd bit her lip while reading and who couldn't make stew without burning the potatoes.
Who actually smiled at him when he returned home from one of his deals, her sparkling eyes and the eager way her body leaned towards him convoying each time that her emotions were genuine no matter how many he expected that he'd see otherwise. Who caused him to find himself anticipating returning to his castle for the first time in all the centuries he'd lived there, even when he'd gained nothing from a deal.
Belle, who took her tea black and strong and put jam on her porridge, whom possessed not the hands of one born to wealth but rather one born into common labor and was not afraid to speak her mind regardless if she knew doing so would displease him.
Belle, the image of whom haunted his dreams as his mind replayed the scenes of it's own creation. Belle, tied up and spread eagled with bruises covering her pale skin and fear in her eyes as a cleric advanced toward her, knife in hand. Belle, her skin laying in strips of the floor beside her as blood poured from the newly exposed muscle, her back laid open to the bone and flies beginning to descend on the wounds.
Belle, her lips silent but her anguished eyes finding his. Pleading for him to help her.
To save her.
Belle, throwing herself off the tower when the pain was too great and he did not come, her form hurtling to the ground – heart beating, breath coming, skin tingling , fear registering, alive!- and that same form shattering apart upon impact.
Belle, whom he saw the image of everywhere about the castle. Dusting, sewing, walking and sometimes running past him, an ink smudge on her nose, curls in attractive disarray, pouring tea and her mouth slightly parted as she slept.
Belle, whose voice rang in his ears with such consistency he almost feared he was going insane.
Why do you spin so much?
Where did those puppets come from?
I'm so sorry. This is chipped.
Don't glare at me! You need food and a few hours of sleep at least. You'll become sick if you don't. Wait, can you get sick?
I think you were lonely.
Since you've read every book in the library, perhaps you can tell me how it is that you've got storybooks and strange manuals galore, but there's not one decent tome on the shelves? Every library needs at least few hundred thick, good tomes.
Why won't you believe me?
Stop trying to ignite the chessboard with your mind. It's not it's fault that you can't win.
I will go with you, forever.
What do you think of the sea?
You're a coward, Rumplestiltskin.
Belle.
His days were destroyed by her voice and image, daylight arriving and gone before he was able to muster the strength to move. The calling of his name and pleas for aid went unanswered for the weight crushing him wouldn't allow him to tolerate the presence of another, let alone himself. Food wouldn't stay down and drink had no effect, sleep evaded him and tears refused to come although his throat burned and his eyes ached. He became accustomed to feeling half dead inside.
Belle, whom had loved him. Whom he loved. His love and been what had killed her, as surly as if he'd been the one to push her off that tower.
Belle, who smelled of roses. The smell of a siren. The smell that now made him sick.
That sent is here with him now, within this forest.
Turning his head Rumplestiltskin sees a rose bush, growing wild and abound with sharp thorns and tangled vines, the bright yellow flowers in full bloom.
The sent reaches his nose, the sweet and heavy odor seeming to roll over him like honey and making anger simmer in his stomach as his eyes prickle and bile rises in his throat.
With a wave of his hand the bush is ablaze, the flames consuming the plant and smoke rising as leaves curl and petals shrivel.
Rumplestiltskin magics himself away from the forest clearing and in an instant appears on a lake shore. The black castle of the cursed witch looms in the distance. The wind is cold against his skin and water lands upon his face.
His eyes are no longer stinging but anger still sits in his stomach and bile has become stuck somewhere in his throat, the acid burning the back of his tongue.
He welcomes the slight pain.
The perfume of burning roses lingers heavily in his nose.
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He will admit, kidnapping Moe French had not been the brightest idea. Nor had beating the man almost to death. Rumplestiltskin didn't care all that much, no matter that he was in another cage.
That fool of a man was lucky that he'd been able to hold out on that beating for as long as he did. From the second he'd laid eyes on him – Belle's father – in this cursed land he'd wanted to hurt him.
Kill him.
Make him suffer.
For French had cast Belle out, he'd rejected her and sent those clerics and caused her suffering.
He was the one that made her leap from that tower! It was his fault! Not his own! Never his fault!
He ignores the voice inside him, the one that whispers in his ear and causes the same nightmares of Belle the plagued him in his world : Only it was his, Rumplestltiskins' fault, wasn't it? He'd had her love and had shut her out, told her she was worth nothing to him…. drove her away. Made her go back to her father.
So for three decades Rumplestiltskin made life as hard as possible for the wretched man. He took his belongings and sent in his goons and upped the pathic bastards rent, everything short of things obviously illegal. It wouldn't do to have Regina suspect that he remembered too soon, after all.
It had been the theft of Belle's cup that pushed him over the edge of his rage, that caused him to kidnap the man.
How dare he take what Belle had touched? How dare he defile the only thing he had left of her?
Yes, the cup had made him take the pathic scum, but as he was driving that truck it was the smell that drove him to the breaking point. There was roses in the back of the truck.
As the sent reached him with every breath and memories of Belle came to his mind's eye his rage grew, boiling stronger with every passing second until by the time French was cowering on the cabin floor he was so close to killing him he could almost see the blood on his cane.
The words that he yelled as his cane struck flesh, over and over again, were not lost on Rumplestiltskin. Neither was the knowdgle that as he beat the man… he was really beating himself, blaming himself, cursing himself.
Belle's death was just as much the fault of her father as it was his.
It was easier, that's all. To blame someone else, just as he still blamed the Blue Fairy for taking Baelfire.
For if another was to blame… perhaps he hadn't failed her. Perhaps he was capable of being the man that she had seen, somehow. Perhaps he wasn't a worthless monster.
Belle was long dead, though. It hadn't been another's fault, not entirely. So the fantasy of being her hero and a man were just that: fantasies. Nothing more.
So now as he sits in this jail cell he doesn't regret beating the man, the father whom was partially to blame and had the gall to have roses in his truck.
He's glad that he didn't kill him though. Belle would have hated him forever if he had.
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Weeks latter the bell rings in front of his shop and he quickly turns to hide gold canister that just moments ago held something very important which is curcial to finding his son, that due to it's lingering magic has already restored the heightened senses he'd once possessed.
The sent reaches him moments before the voice does, tugging at the string of memory within his mind.
Roses.
"Excuse me. Are you Mr. Gold?"
No. it can't be. It's just that his smell is on overload, his mind struggling to process odors it has not been able to detect for so many years. It's getting the aromas of sunlight, dust, silk, dead wood, magic, and so much else mixed up that it's involuntary created a new sent.
He speaks, turning as he does so.
"Yes I am, but I'm afraid the shop's close-"
His mind goes blank, the breath stopping in his lungs and his voice ceasing as his knees go weak.
She is there, standing before him.
Belle.
His Belle.
The aroma of roses engulfs him, drawing him in as if she were a siren.